to win me back to honest
ways; but you little knew the strength of the net I had wrapped around
me. You did not know that I was a pirate!"

Gascoyne paused, and bent his head as if in thought. The widow sat with
clasped hands, gazing at him with a look of despair on her pale face.
But she did not move or speak. The three listeners sat in perfect
silence, until the pirate chose to continue his confession.

"Yes, I have been a pirate," said he; "but I have not been the villain
that men have painted me." He looked steadily in the widow's face as he
said these words deliberately.

"Do not try to palliate your conduct, Gascoyne," said Mr. Mason,
earnestly. "The blackness of your sin is too great to be deepened or
lightened by what men may have said of you. You are a pirate. Every
_pirate is a murderer_."

"_I am not a murderer_," said Gascoyne, slowly, in reply, but still
fixing his gaze on the widow's face, as if he addressed himself solely
to her.

"You may not have committed murder with your own hand," said Mr. Mason,
"but the man who leads on others to commit the crime is a murderer, in
the eye of God's law as well as in that of man."

"I never led on men to commit murder," said Gascoyne, in the same tone,
and with the same steadfast gaze. "This hand is free from the stain of
human blood. Do you believe me, Mary?"

The widow did not answer. She sat like one bereft of all power of speech
or motion.

"I will explain," resumed the pirate captain, drawing a long breath, and
directing his looks to Henry now.

"For reasons which it is not necessary that you should know, I resolved
some years ago to become a pirate. I had been deceived--shamefully
deceived and wronged--by wealthy and powerful men. I had appealed to the
law of my country, and the law refused to right me. No, not the law, but
those who sat on the judgment-seat to pervert the law. It matters not
now; I was driven mad at the time, for the wrong done was not done so
much to me as to those whom I loved. I vowed that I should be avenged.

"I soon found men as mad as myself, who only wanted a leader to guide
them in order to run full swing to destruction. I seized the Foam, of
which schooner I was mate, called her the Avenger, and became a pirate.
No blood was shed when I seized the schooner. Before an opportunity
occurred of trying my hand at this new profession, my anger had cooled.
_I repented_ of what I had done; but I was surrounded by men who were
m